(1896-1967) German general, commander of the 21st Panzer Division in North Africa and the 715th Infantry Division in Italy, held in British captivity for over two years until his release in 1947. Fine content, war-date T.L.S. as Major General, 3pp. legal folio, 'Fieldpost 40039', Jan. 29, 1944, to General Rudolf Schmidt. In part: '...The past year, with its successes up to April [1943] and its horrible anger afterwards, has undoubtedly aged me and perhaps cost me more nerves than many a battle I have been in. This betrayal [by spy Hans-Thilo Schmidt] and the mean, groundless accusations, are just things against which a decently trained soldier is powerless. We are not accustomed to...acquiescing to such infamies. Maybe I should have handled Strempel more harshly, because I had the opportunity to destroy him. On the other hand, given the difficulty of the time and importance of other tasks, I didn't want to do too much...The success of this attitude was that I was given a long-standing division after I had previously trained the general officers of the armored and motorized divisions under General [Hans] Guderian for two months. However, the 715th is makeshift motorized, and when I had them but five days, I rushed them here. But it went better than I thought. The men, mostly Wurttembergers, average age 31, are not bad, infantry is good, the artillery has bad equipment and is useless, the commanders are overaged. The division has existed for two years. In a few days, I will lead them into battle for the first time. I contacted [Albert] Kesselring, he is probably 'in the know' about everything...[Gustav Heistermann von] Ziehlberg has down here, and I am told his division failed. He himself lost his left arm and is now sitting...in Germany. [Bogislaw von] Bonin, Chief of the XVI A.K., was sent home yesterday with a bang...also [Karl-Hans] Lungershausen, [Rudolf] Sievkenius and [Josef] Stenkhoff....Our infantry still feels vastly superior to the Anglo-Americans, and they are only successful when they advance with insane superiority in artillery, naval guns and air force. The enemy doesn't risk anything: he landed peacefully and dug in after 10 km instead of marching through to Rome. He must have been fleeing the losses he may have incurred in Rome. How nice when we were still rich in artillery and air force, and could attack with our splendid human material, but that was a long time ago...'. Rudolf Schmidt (1886-1957) was a General in the Wehrmacht, and winner of Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. At the time of this letter, Hildebrandt was commanding the 715th in Italy, having served under Schmidt as General of Staff in the XXXIX Panzer Corps, which took part of Operation Felix and Barbarossa and, later, punched through Russian lines to relieve the German garrison at Cholm. Rudolf Schmidt's brother Hans-Thilo Schmidt (1888-1943), was a notorious German spy who, in the 1930s, sold information about the German Enigma machine to the French. Although neither France nor Great Britain broke the codes, a Polish mathematician was able to solve the equations and recover the wirings in 1932. This breakthrough allowed Poland to be able to read Enigma traffic for nearly seven years to the outbreak of World War II and into the war, while operating in conjunction with French intelligence in France. The war-time context for Hildebrandt's mention of 'this' Schmidt is unclear, but certainly worthy of further research especially in conjunction with the German army's floundering at this time. With the original transmittal cover, in very good condition.